Deliberately Omitting Falsifying Evidence

Martin (1992: 115):

Comparison is realised through Post-Deictics (which precede Numeratives, if any), Numeratives and Epithets (which follow Numeratives, if any) in nominal group structure … .  Comparison is also realised through comparative Attributes in intensive attributive relational clauses …

Blogger Comments:

Here Martin misleads by ignoring the fact that the grammatical domain of comparative reference items is not limited to the nominal group, but includes also the adverbial group, as Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 561) make plain:

Significantly, the acknowledgement of the adverbial group as a domain of comparative reference would have exposed the theoretical inconsistencies in Martin's discourse semantic model of reference, which, in confusing nominal group deixis with reference, misconstrues reference as a relation between nominal groups, and misrepresents a purported relation between grammatical units as a rebranded discourse semantic relation.